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Saturday, March 04, 2006

Sketch Day

Friday afternoon was a free one for me, so I got to meet up with Diahn and go sketching in Knoxville for a few hours.

In honor of Diahn's March devotion to the color orange, we met up at the Orangery, a wonderful building full of character and charm, which contains not only the Orangery Restaurant, but several other shops. I'd always thought it was an old building that had been restored, but never considered exactly what it used to be (a house? apartments? shopping center?) until Diahn asked. We called her dear hubby, who looked it up on the computer and informed us that it was all fake. Well, not really fake. The gentleman who built this building has done a wonderful job of restoring many old historical buildings in town; his love for the old architecture is evident in the careful way he carries out his renovations. This building was built to house some old architectural pieces from buildings that had been or were being torn down. Anyway, it was a great place to sketch. If you go to her blog, you'll see that we both drew the same "stoned cherub."

From the Orangery, it was just a block and a half down to Jerry's Artarama, where we felt obligated to do a bit of shopping. I had to pick up a few more colors in the Dr Ph Martin's liquids, and a couple of funny postcards for Diahn and I to keep in the backpockets of our Moleskines as additional souveniers from our day. Notice how it fits with Diahn's theme of orange for the month of March, too!

From Jerry's we pulled into a torn up old parking lot across from this wonderful building -- Toddy's Backdoor Tavern and Package Store. And in this sketch I learned NOT to start sketching one place, then move to another place to finish the sketch. It messes up one's perspective!

We drove around a little bit more, taking some photos and making another additional stop (we were NOT shopping -- we were just LOOKING -- jeez!) The afternoon went way too fast for me. Hey, Diahn -- when are we going again???

Technical bit: Micron and Staedtler pens in Moleskine sketch book. Note the wonky circles in the top drawing -- I'm going to add a few different sized circle templates to the pocket in my book!

For some reason, Linda and I always have good intentions to sketch and sketch and sketch and we manage a little but laugh and goof off a lot more than we draw! We had a great time - especially with the stoned angel :D.

These look great, Linda!! I'm ready whenever you are - I drove down Gay Street today and the Tennessee Theatre caught my eye - there are some cool buildings down there...might be a fun place to walk and end up in Market Square for a snack!!

No problem!! I love that sculpture of the kid in the boat coming out of the sidewalk right across from the theater - you know the one? That would be a good open space to be able to see some of the taller buildings!